Checkpoint Finish Date Raises Ire : Project: Border facility south of San Clemente should not take 11 years to build, mayor and congressman say.

A state highway official’s estimate that a new border checkpoint south of San Clemente could still be 11 years away was attacked as “totally unacceptable” Wednesday by Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside) and San Clemente Mayor Joseph Anderson.

Packard, who helped secure $30 million in federal money for a new 16-lane freeway checkpoint proposed for Horno Canyon in Camp Pendleton, said Southern California is in the midst of an immigration crisis. He insisted that plans for a new Immigration and Naturalization Service facility on Interstate 5 should move faster.

“There is no way I can accept this time frame. I was startled when I found out,” said Packard, a 10-year congressman up for reelection. “We have the most serious immigration problem in the entire United States right here. There are more illegal border crossings in one 14-mile stretch than in all of the rest of the country put together.”

But a state Department of Transportation official warned that the project, scheduled for an environmentally sensitive portion of the Marine base, will take years to complete. While early estimates predicted construction could begin in 1993, more realistic estimates now show its completion could be eight years away or, in a worst-case scenario, as long as 11 years away, Caltrans spokesman Kyle Nelson said.

“If (Packard) can make this happen faster, that’s fine with us,” Nelson said. “But it’s not a matter of the money; it’s a matter of following state laws with regards to environmental studies, design and construction. A lot of people are watching this project closely and want to be involved in the process.”

Those concerned with the progress of the new checkpoint include Border Patrol agents who man the facility now at San Onofre, the Marine Corps, the Customs Service, the trucking industry, immigration rights activists and environmentalists, Nelson said. The preliminary design for a new model includes 16 electronic gates for traffic flow, extended truck scales, parking areas, and booths for Border Patrol agents, who now stand unprotected on the open freeway, he said.

“It’s more than just a matter of laying more pavement and widening the area,” Nelson said. “We have to consider new utility access, access for the Marines to use the beach, wetlands issues, endangered species issues. There are a lot of ducks to get in order.”

Nelson said the project is only at the preliminary design stage. Final designs cannot be started until the environmental process is completed, which could take two years, barring any lawsuits that could cause further delays, he said.

But the time frame is not the real issue, say immigration rights activists who do not believe border checkpoints are part of the solution to curb the flow of illegal workers into the country.

UC Irvine anthropologist Leo Chavez said the checkpoints are a “Band-Aid approach” that means more regulations for everyone.

“You can put up as many fences as you want to, but that’s not the solution,” Chavez said. “This may control immigration to a certain degree, but it does not get to the root of the problem, which requires a real understanding of what drives immigrants to this country. Maybe it is our economy, which is losing high-tech jobs and adding many more service jobs.”

Checkpoint critics often claim the freeway facilities are too dangerous, pointing out statistics such as the 15 immigrants who were killed attempting to avoid the checkpoint in 1990. A Border Patrol crash near a checkpoint on Interstate 15 killed five people in Temecula on June 2.

In the past, those critics found allies in San Clemente officials who for years blasted the concept of a border checkpoint only seven miles south of their city limits. Because problems at the checkpoint, such as freeway chases, often spill into San Clemente and endanger innocent people, city officials had repeatedly called for the elimination of the facility.

Now, however, Anderson said he has grown to believe “it would be a misdirection of our efforts to try and do away with the checkpoint.”

“I’m convinced the checkpoint is not going to go away,” he said.

He joined Packard on Wednesday in insisting that the facility be completed as quickly as possible, calling the checkpoint a “secondary line of defense.”

“It apparently is very important to the mission of the Border Patrol not only for the apprehension of illegal aliens but for stolen vehicles, drug interdiction and so on,” the mayor said. “But it is absolutely ridiculous for Caltrans to take nine to 11 years to build a new one. It speaks to everything that is wrong with our bureaucracy. Where have they been during the past four or five years we have been talking about this?”

To help move the process along, Packard said he would sit down with Caltrans officials “and determine what has to be done.” He did not say when he would do that.

“I will make certain I’m there to needle them to move this along,” Packard said. “Eleven years is absolutely unacceptable. Six or seven years is too long, but maybe that can be done.”

Michael Farber of Hidden Meadows in San Diego County, the Democratic candidate for Packard’s seat in the 48th Congressional District, dismissed Packard’s complaints as election-year talk. He added that he is against Border Patrol checkpoints.

“The efforts should be placed at the border. American citizens should not be penalized by having to go through internal checkpoints in their own country,” Farber said. “We need to look at the root problems. Employer sanctions may be the real answer.”